8 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2023
      • for: gene culture coevolution, carrying capacity, unsustainability, overshoot, cultural evolution, progress trap

      • Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

      • Author: Brian F. Snyder

      • Abstract

      • Summary
      • Paraphrase
        • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
        • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
          • climate change,
          • biodiversity loss,
          • population growth
        • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
        • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
          • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
        • Here, we integrate this theory with
          • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
        • and propose a model linking
          • energy extraction from the environment with
          • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
        • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
        • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
          • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
          • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
        • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
        • in all species,
        • but in humans, they are also determined by
          • technology and
          • culture.
        • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
          • the ability of an individual or social group
        • to increase its carrying capacity,
        • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
        • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
          • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.
  2. Mar 2023
    1. It has been suggested that - the human species may be undergoing an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI).

      there is disagreement about - how to apply the ETI framework to our species - and whether culture is implicated - as either cause or consequence.

      Long-term gene–culture coevolution (GCC) i- s - also poorly understood.

      argued that - culture steers human evolution,

      Others proposed - genes hold culture on a leash.

      After review of the literature and evidence on long-term GCC in humans - emerge a set of common themes. - First, culture appears to hold greater adaptive potential than genetic inheritance - and is probably driving human evolution. - The evolutionary impact of culture occurs - mainly through culturally organized groups, - which have come to dominate human affairs in recent millennia. - Second, the role of culture appears to be growing, - increasingly bypassing genetic evolution and weakening genetic adaptive potential. -Taken together, these findings suggest that human long-term GCC is characterized by - an evolutionary transition in inheritance - from genes to culture - which entails a transition in individuality (from genetic individual to cultural group). Research on GCC should focus on the possibility of - an ongoing transition in the human inheritance system.

    1. As a consequence of sociocultural niche construction, humans have become a global force of nature – for better and for worse. It is only by embracing these sociocultural realities that we might shape better futures for both humans and non-human species alike.

      // In Other Words

      • we must undo the myopic cultural evolution that has already taken place with a more collectively conscious form of cultural evolution //
    1. Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
      • Title: Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality
      • Author: Herbert Gintis

      //Abstract - Summary - Human characteristics are the product of gene–culture coevolution, - which is an evolutionary dynamic involving the interaction of genes and culture - over long time periods. - Gene–culture coevolution is a special case of niche construction. - Gene–culture coevolution is responsible for: - human other-regarding preferences, - a taste for fairness, - the capacity to empathize and - salience of morality and character virtues.

      • Title: Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus
      • Author:
        • Jeremy Kendal
        • Jamshid J. Tehrani
        • John Oding-Smee
      • Abstract
        • summary
        • Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution,
      • reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection.
        • It works by adding ecological inheritance,
        • comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction,
        • to genetic inheritance in evolution.
        • Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species.
        • Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent
        • because it includes the social transmission and inheritance
        • of cultural knowledge, and material culture.
        • Human genetic inheritance
        • in combination with human cultural inheritance
        • thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution,
        • and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution.
        • Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences.
        • We elaborate on these processes,
        • and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.
    1. The central question of the Anthropocene, why did behaviorally modern humans gain the unprecedented capacity to change an entire planet, cannot be answered by genetic changes in human behavior. To explain why human societies scaled up to become a global force capable of changing the Earth and why there are so many different forms of human societies and ecologies shaped by them, explanations must be sought beyond the theories of biology, chemistry or physics. Here I introduce a new evolutionary theory, sociocultural niche construction, aimed at explaining the origins of human capacity to transform the Earth 3. As will be seen, this theory also explains why behaviorally modern human societies came to transform ecology in so many different ways over the past 50,000 years as they expanded across the Earth.

      //Summary* - The central question of the Anthropocene: - why did behaviorally modern humans gain the unprecedented capacity to change an entire planet? - cannot be answered by genetic changes in human behavior. - To explain why human societies scaled up to become a global force capable of changing the Earth and why there are so many different forms of human societies and ecologies shaped by them, - explanations must be sought beyond the theories of - biology, - chemistry or - physics. - Here I introduce a new evolutionary theory, sociocultural niche construction, - aimed at explaining the origins of human capacity to transform the Earth . - As will be seen, this theory also explains why - behaviorally modern human societies came to - transform ecology in so many different ways over the past 50,000 years as they expanded across the Earth. //

    1. Abstract
      • Abstract
      • summary
        • The exhibition of increasingly intensive and complex niche construction behaviors through time
        • is a key feature of human evolution,
        • culminating in the advanced capacity for ecosystem engineering exhibited by Homo sapiens.
        • A crucial outcome of such behaviors has been the dramatic reshaping of the global biosphere,
          • a transformation whose early origins are increasingly apparent
          • from cumulative archaeological and paleoecological datasets.
        • Such data suggest that, by the Late Pleistocene,
        • humans had begun to engage in activities
        • that have led to alterations in the distributions of a vast array of species
        • across most, if not all, taxonomic groups.
        • Changes to biodiversity have included
          • extinctions,
          • extirpations, and
          • shifts in species
            • composition,
            • diversity, and
            • community structure.
        • We outline key examples of these changes,
        • highlighting findings from the study of new datasets, like
          • ancient DNA (aDNA),
          • stable isotopes, and
          • microfossils, as well as
          • the application of new statistical and computational methods to datasets that have accumulated significantly in recent decades.
        • We focus on four major phases that witnessed broad anthropogenic alterations to biodiversity:
          • the Late Pleistocene global human expansion,
          • the Neolithic spread of agriculture,
          • the era of island colonization, and
          • the emergence of early urbanized societies and commercial networks.
        • Archaeological evidence documents millennia of anthropogenic transformations
        • that have created novel ecosystems around the world.
        • This record has implications for:
          • ecological and evolutionary research,
          • conservation strategies, and
          • the maintenance of ecosystem services,
        • pointing to a significant need for broader cross-disciplinary engagement between:
          • archaeology
          • the biological sciences and
          • the environmental sciences.
    2. Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions
      • Title: Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions
      • Author:
        • Nicole L. Bolvin
        • Melinda A. Zeder
        • Dorian O. Fuller
        • Michael D. Petraglia